6.  The applicants were born in 1962 and 1952 respectively and live in Sofia.
7.  The first applicant was an investigator with the national police, holding the rank of captain. At the time of the events she was working in the specialised department dealing with intellectual property offences within the Sofia Regional Directorate of the Interior Ministry.
8.  Following the receipt of information from a shopkeeper alleging bribery and corruption by police officials, a preliminary investigation was carried out. The applicant and one of her colleagues were placed under investigation for the offences of taking bribes and obstructing the course of justice, committed in the performance of their duties. On 19 December 2001 the first applicant was arrested and remanded in custody. The accusations against the two officials were reported in the press.
9.  The second applicant, a member of the Sofia Bar, agreed to represent the first applicant.
10.  In a judgment of 4 March 2003 the Sofia Military Court found the first applicant guilty of several counts of corruption and obstructing the course of justice and sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment and to payment of a fine of 3,000 Bulgarian levs (BGN). The court also barred her from further employment in the Interior Ministry. It acquitted the first applicant on one of the counts, relating to the acceptance of a bribe of BGN 320 on 28 February 2001.
11.  The first applicant appealed. In a judgment of 19 June 2003 the Sofia Military Court of Appeal quashed, on the grounds of procedural irregularities, the part of the judgment in which the applicant had been found guilty, and referred the case back to the investigating authorities. As the prosecution did not appeal, the applicant’s acquittal on one of the counts with which she had been charged became final.
12.  On 28 January 2004 the public prosecutor again committed the accused for trial. On 5 February 2004, however, the reporting judge remitted the case for further investigation. Following a further decision to commit the accused for trial dated 10 May 2004, the reporting judge once again sent the case file back to the public prosecutor.
13.  The first applicant lodged an application under Article 239a of the 1978 Code of Criminal Procedure, complaining of the excessive length of the proceedings. Under that provision, the reporting judge returned the case file to the public prosecutor on 8 April 2005, informing him that he must either commit the accused for trial or discontinue the proceedings within two months.
14.  The public prosecutor committed the accused for trial on 8 June 2005. However, on 16 June 2005 the reporting judge once again returned the case file to the prosecuting authorities, giving them one month to correct certain procedural irregularities in the indictment. In an order of 28 July 2005 the reporting judge noted that the accused had not been committed for trial within the prescribed time-limit and discontinued the criminal proceedings under Article 239a of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
15.  Following the first applicant’s prosecution, disciplinary proceedings were started against her. In that connection she gave evidence in person, furnished written explanations and was informed of the contents of the file. Under an order issued by the Minister of the Interior on 26 February 2002, the first applicant was dismissed from her post on the ground that, on 28 March 2001, she had requested and received from a person under investigation the sum of BGN 300 in return for agreeing not to conduct an investigation, and had deliberately omitted to complete the investigation file as requested by the public prosecutor’s office. The Minister considered her actions to be in breach of her professional duty, incompatible with good morals and, in view of the media coverage, damaging to the reputation of the service, thereby justifying her dismissal in accordance with section 239, paragraphs 1(5) and 2 of the 1999 Interior Ministry Act, in force at the relevant time.
16.  On 11 March 2002 the first applicant lodged an application with the Supreme Administrative Court for judicial review of the order for her dismissal. She instructed the second applicant, a member of the Sofia Bar, to present her case.
17.  On 2 April 2002 the Ministry of the Interior forwarded to the Supreme Administrative Court the documents relating to the applicant’s dismissal and requested that the case be considered in camera on the grounds that some of the documents were classified. Following this request, the Supreme Administrative Court case file was classified as “secret”. It appears from the material produced before the Court that two documents from the file were marked as “secret”. These were an incident report (съобщение за произшествие) sent to the human resources department of the Interior Ministry, reporting on the charging and remand in custody of the first applicant, and an internal audit report (справка относно извършена проверка) prepared in April 2001 in the department where the first applicant had been working, dealing with the organisation of the department, its staff members and working methods, the number and type of proceedings in progress and the problems and shortcomings that had been observed.
18.  On an unspecified date the second applicant requested permission to consult the file but was not allowed to access it on the ground that it was classified as secret and that she had not obtained the authorisation required in order to consult classified information (допуск, разрешение за достъп).
19.  At the hearing of 28 May 2002 the second applicant requested that the case be adjourned because she had not had access to the file. She argued that only documents containing State secrets could be marked as “secret” and that the nature of the case was such that the file did not contain information of that type. In her view, she should have had access to it in her capacity as a lawyer. The representative of the Interior Ministry stated that, although it was true that under the transitional provisions of the new Protection of Classified Information Act information that had hitherto been considered as “secret” was in future to be considered as “confidential” (see paragraph 40 below), the fact remained that authorisation was required in order to access such information, and that it was up to the second applicant to request it. The Supreme Administrative Court decided to adjourn the hearing.
20.  The first applicant appeared alone at the hearing of 25 June 2002, as the second applicant had decided not to request authorisation, not wishing to be subjected to security screening (процедура по проучване) by the National Security Service of the Interior Ministry.
21.  The first applicant asked the Supreme Administrative Court to suspend the proceedings and to apply to the Constitutional Court for a ruling as to whether the provisions requiring lawyers to undergo security screening in order to be allowed access to classified documents were contrary to the Constitution and to Article 6 § 3 (c) of the Convention. She added that in her case the body responsible for deciding on the authorisation request was the respondent party in the proceedings.
22.  In an order issued the same day the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the request for the proceedings to be adjourned or suspended. It observed in that connection that the first applicant’s representative had not taken any steps towards obtaining authorisation. It further noted that the classification of a case file as secret was carried out at the request of the administrative authorities who had produced the classified documents, and that such requests stemmed from the authorities’ obligations under the rules and not from the court’s wishes.
23.  The first applicant submitted written pleadings in which she challenged the lawfulness of the decision to dismiss her, on formal and substantive grounds. She argued in particular that, since the decision had been based on acts that were the subject of criminal proceedings against her, no disciplinary sanctions could be imposed prior to a possible conviction.
24.  In a judgment of 25 June 2003 the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the applicant’s application and upheld the decision dismissing her.
25.  The first applicant appealed on points of law. She submitted that the security screening which her lawyer would have had to undergo in order to obtain authorisation amounted to interference with her private life which could not be regarded as justified under Article 8 § 2 of the Convention. She also observed that the file did not contain any information that could be described as a State secret. In addition, she maintained that the decision to consider the case in camera had been in breach of the Constitution and the domestic legislation, and complained of the fact that she had not had the assistance of a lawyer.
26.  Furthermore, the applicant submitted that the corruption incident referred to in the decision dismissing her was the subject of criminal proceedings and that the fact of not awaiting the outcome of those proceedings before dismissing her on disciplinary grounds was tantamount to circumventing the law. She also alleged several other procedural irregularities.
27.  A hearing was held before the five-judge bench of the Supreme Administrative Court on 10 October 2003, at which the first applicant appeared alone. She produced a copy of the judgment of the Military Court of Appeal of 19 June 2003 quashing her criminal conviction and remitting the case for investigation (see paragraph 11 above).
28.  In a judgment of 9 December 2003 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the appeal. It noted that the courts were not competent to make public documents which had been classified as “secret” by the administrative authority that had produced them. It considered that the requirement for lawyers seeking access to classified documents to undergo an authorisation procedure was justified from the standpoint of Article 8 of the Convention by the need to protect interests pertaining to national security and public order. The Supreme Administrative Court observed in that connection that the hearing had been adjourned so that the second applicant could apply for authorisation, but that she had not seen fit to do so. The consideration of the case in camera had also been justified by the confidential nature of the information contained in the file. In conclusion, the Supreme Administrative Court held that there had been no infringement of the first applicant’s procedural rights.
29.  On the merits, the court considered that the acts of which the applicant had been accused had been sufficiently established and that the Ministry had not been obliged to await the outcome of the criminal proceedings before imposing disciplinary sanctions. It further noted that the judgement of the Sofia Military Court had been quashed on account of procedural irregularities and did not call into question the findings of the decision dismissing the applicant or the first-instance judgment.
30.  As the file had been classified, the first applicant was unable at first to obtain a copy of the judgments, which were not published on the Supreme Administrative Court’s website. She was given permission to consult the text of the judgments at the court’s registry. The case was declassified on 6 July 2009 on expiry of the statutory five-year period.